


Egress

by anonymousgratification



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Tension, Unresolved Feelings, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 00:59:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousgratification/pseuds/anonymousgratification
Summary: (Set in the Batman Beyond universe.)Dick comes home to someone he never expected waiting for him.





	Egress

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wasn't a huge fan of Batman Beyond when I read it, but... this was one of those things where once I got the idea in my head my hands just started typing until I got it out.  
> Basically, this is me messing around with a few ideas. Set before some of the events in the comic.  
> In my head, they had a similar relationship to the way they did in main comic universe (Dick as his partner & sort of father figure). Dick left & disappeared at some point, creating a life entirely separate from Batman and Gotham.  
> Damian's probably 20 or so, and Dick is in his late thirties. (he's already graying because in the comics his old man look really makes me nut.) Damian is leading the League of Assassins, and Dick is mayor of Bludhaven and has a new family. He's no longer Nightwing.  
> Really, this was an excuse to write Demon's Head Damian & Mayor Grayson (lmao). I randomly saw those panels online last night, which sparked this fit of inspiration.  
> Anyway, love these two. They own my ass.  
> Thanks for reading :~)  
>   
> 

Dick spends his morning in meetings with town officials,discussing upcoming events and proceeding changes in the city. He’s been working for years to mend Bludhaven in ways he never could before. To assist during the hours of the day, instead of behind masks and shadows.

He returns home in the early afternoon. His residence is a house built directly at the center of the city. It's a short drive from his office. 

Entering through the door plated with mahogany, his head fills with a series of mundane musings. The work he has to finish. What he’ll eat for dinner. When everyone else will be home. 

Progressing through the house, he rotates the doorknob to his bedroom and opens the door. He shuts it again, set on getting some work done before the day ends. 

His eyes startle as he takes in the room. The window is open, causing the space to be brightly lit up by the gap it creates. 

A voice interrupts his daze. A voice he could never forget.

“Mayor Grayson."

Damian spins around in the desk chair, his elbow on the armrest, hand under his head. He raises an eyebrow, glancing around the room, then at Dick. “Charming.”

“Damian? What the hell are you doing here?” Astounded, he snarls at him. His surprise isn’t at Damian’s capability of hacking into his security system, or planning his assail when he’s alone. His surprise is at Damian being here at all. 

Damian rises to his feet, moving to stand directly in front of him. He’s taller than he was, but Dick is a fraction more. Dick can see how toned he is under his clothes; framed by the dark skin poking out of his collar and sleeves. 

“I know I am not a loyal citizen of Bludhaven, but I do endeavor to speak with the mayor,” Damian smirks, the same one he’s always had. A little too sharp around the edges. It has the greens of his eyes illuminating in venom. 

“What do you want, Damian?” His body implores him to fight. His entire being opposes Damian’s presence.

“Can’t I visit?” he asks, with all the fierceness of his eyes.

Dick sits his bag down over the desk, moving to take off his jacket. “Breaking into my house isn’t exactly visiting.” He lays the article of clothing over the back of the chair. 

“It would have felt inappropriate to knock. What if your beloved bride had answered?" He tuts. "Does she even know of me?” 

A scarce pain stings at his thorax. Right in his chest. “Damian…”

“Don’t worry.” Dismissing his claims, he lifts a hand and waves it. “I hold no resentment for you. In fact, I’m glad things worked out so nicely here.” His clenched jaw disagrees.

“It could have for you, too,” Dick says. 

“You think I would be satisfied in a life like this? With a wife and a child? Employed within the government?” Briefly, he snickers. “I am not you.”

“You don’t have to remind me of that. I definitely know you aren’t me.” Dick furrows his eyebrows. “So… why has the Demon’s Head graced me with a visit?”

Damian’s eyes are scorching through him, and Dick can feel it as if they're burning his skin. 

He hums. “I suppose I’ve taken a sudden interest in politics.” His voice is deeper than Dick remembers. Lower. It's ambiguously sultry. The tone is almost as if he’s…

“Have you? Big elections coming up in Tibet?”

“Please. Politicians are just as useless as the police." The expression on his face alters. It transforms into scorn. "You’ve been both, haven’t you? Which type of worthlessness do you fancy more?"

Damian speaks with that same locution specific to him. Dick can't decide if he's missed it or not. Uncertain about more than he isn't, he gets in a semblance of a fight stance, leaning forward.

“A joke,” Damian says.

“You were never good at those." Dick coerces his body to relax, though every nerve fights him, advising him against the perilousness surrounding Damian. “Really… what are you doing in my house?”

“Was around,” he mutters, to which Dick peers at him. “I guess I was curious.” It’s a lie. Curiosity is a fragment of the truth. The other component is, well… too childish to say. “I can’t deny mayor is a perfect occupation for the ever so perfect Dick Grayson,” he sneers, his eyes rolling.

Not pandering to his goading, Dick responds with a simple dissent. “I’m not perfect."

A succinct silence strains the room. In it, Damian slips away from him.

“Do you disagree with my leaving?” he asks, staring at him in his peripheral.

“Why does it matter what I think?” Damian’s averts his eyes. Dick doesn’t know. He has no idea. He’s completely ignorant to what he means to him. 

He sighs. It doesn’t matter anymore. Dick has a new life and a new family; one he’s not subsumed into. He had known it would turn out this way. Some side of him always knew he couldn’t stay by Dick’s side, though he hoped for it over and over until it made him sick. 

“My apologizes for asking. I—”

“You haven’t thought to ask before,” Dick says. The soft, gentle demeanor he normally has returns, the tightness of his face loosening. “When you left… you never told me you were going.”

Vacantly, Damian meets his eyes. “You find my egress upsetting?”

Dick scoffs, squinting at him. “You’re not serious?”

“Do I look as if I am not?”

Dick actually finds himself looking, investigating every corner of his face. No, he doesn’t. Not at all.

“Yes, it was upsetting.” He makes a noise; a faint groan. “You were… I wish you would have told me.”

“Well… everything turned out fine, didn’t it? You are living a tremendously honorable life here,” he sneers, but there’s a layer of genuine amusement. “I would have only caused trouble.”

Dick ignores half of what he says, spilling something he’s been holding onto for years. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

“Our destiny is not to be together,” he says, blandly. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I don’t believe that. And I _don’t_ believe in destiny.” He scowls. Damian doesn’t know how he makes the sour face look handsome; doesn’t know how he’s still embarrassingly attracted to Dick, smudges of white in his hair, prospect of wrinkles around his eyes.

When he was younger, he used to covertly watch him for hours. He has Dick’s face memorized so entirely it haunts his dreams. His cheekbones, his jaw, the curve of his neck. 

Back then, he would become shamefully enthralled while they sparred, or were on patrol, and Dick insisted on telling him a fatuous story, and wouldn’t shut up until he got a reaction. 

Now, at night when he goes out into the shadows, it’s silent. 

Blue, dilated irises stare at him, waiting for his move. The familiar shade gives him a sense of security, a similar one from his childhood. He doesn’t know how Dick does it. 

Fleetingly, Damian wonders what would have happened if he had stayed as Batman. If he had never left. If neither of them did. 

“I thought you would convince me to stay,” he shares. 

“I couldn’t convince you if I tried.” Once again, that feeling; the one where Damian thinks Dick is an oblivious idiot. He’s the only person who could have convinced him. Part of him thinks if Dick asked him to stay now, he would.

“So, you would try?” He sneers. 

“Yes. Maybe… I don’t know. I at least would have said goodbye… or something.”

“Or something…” he murmurs. He cannot be sure if Dick hears it or doesn't. If he does, he doesn’t respond. 

Damian saunters back to him. He tilts his head, absorbing the sight of Dick before him.

His fingers reach for him, gliding up the side of his jaw. The touch has him dizzy. The contact has him— _Damian al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, the leader of the League of Assassins—_ frenzied. Damian stares at him with all the old passion of a teenager, one who was much too attentive of his mentor.“I was always so… fond of you, Grayson…”

Dick’s hand darts up for his. He grabs his wrist. “…What are you doing?”

Damian doesn’t let go. He keeps staring. Keeps taking it in. Engraving Dick’s very essence into his brain. “Just remembering,” he mumbles. “What’s your wife like?”

“Uh…” He bites his tongue. He’s not sure if he should share with Damian— Damian who’s… Damian who’s Damian. “She’s nice. She’s very… lovely.”

Right away, he asks, “does she love you?”

“I hope,” he jokes, but Damian only clenches his eyebrows together at the attempt. “Yes. We’re in love.”

Damian makes a sound. A small one. A growl. “How does it feel?”

“What, love?” Damian inclines his head in a feeble nod. “Good? I don’t know. Great.”

“Does it feel as if you could die from it?” he asks, his eyes piercing into Dick. Dick knows Damian’s not asking for no reason. He isn’t one to do so. It’s a question with substance.

“I…” His voice drifts off. _Does it? Does it feel like he could die from it?_

Damian slants forward. It’s a strategic move, the way his hand curls around his neck and his leg brushes his. His body advances with all the dexterity of an expert assassin. “That’s how it feels for me. Like it could destroy me.” Dick tries to turn his head, or pull away, but Damian’s grip grows stronger. “Slowly eating at you from the inside… until you can’t think of anything but it,” he exhales. His eyes settle on Dick’s lips. “Does it feel like that for you?” he asks.

“No…” Dick’s voice sounds foreign to his own ears when he speaks; more of a whisper. “It doesn’t feel like that.”

“Then perhaps it is not love?” The longer they speak, the more intense Damian grows. The pure danger oozing out of him has Dick vastly unnerved. He is unable to move. “My mother says passion should be all consuming. That is when you know it is worthy.”

“You’re seriously telling me something your mother said as a means to deconstruct my personal relationships?”

“No,” he snarls. His bared teeth are too close to Dick’s. Dick becomes trapped, as if in a trance; poisoned by Damian’s words. “I’m asking if you love her. If you’d die for her. If you’d _kill_.”

“I don’t kill,” Dick bites back. “I will never have to make that choice. I ensured she wouldn't be in that position. I took myself out of that life to keep my family safe.”

“Family?” The taste of his mouth turns bitter around the word. “What about me?”

“What about you?” Damian’s eyes narrow, daring him to continue. He dares back. “You’re Bruce’s kid.”

“That’s all I am?” he asks. He’s closer now. Glistening eyes keep moving closer. His thumb brushes the side of Dick’s face, sketching his jaw.

“What do you want from me, Damian?” Dick growls. He grabs Damian’s hand and twists, but in a fluid movement, Damian’s got him spun around, his wrist contorted behind his back. 

“You’re getting frail in your senility,” he says, over his shoulder.

Dick’s other hand reaches around, grabs his hand, and he shifts until he’s freed. He shoves Damian back against the wall, stapling his arm over his chest to keep him there. “Not frail.”

Wild eyed, he says, “so you _do_ still have some fight in you.”

“You really think I wouldn’t?”

A noise like a laugh comes out of Damian. “You rarely disappoint.”

“Why are you here?” With additional force, Dick rams him back a second time. Damian could break the hold in a second, but he’s intrigued to see what Dick will do if he pushes hard enough. 

“Where did _you_ go when _you_ left? I, of course, was merely returning to my rightful place. But you… you ran away because you felt inferior. Like a coward." 

Dick’s face pigments in fury. His eyes stab at him. His other arm thuds against the wall. Damian hopes he’s going to strike him. Hit him. Show him the rage he’s missed all these years. The rage that _excites_ him. He can see the itching of it in his fingers, as Dick’s hand twitches over his heart. 

Leaning forward, he glowers at him. “If you came to fight, I am _not_ interested.”

“Not to fight,” Damian says. 

“Wh—”

Dick is cut off as Damian forces him away and switches their positions, pushing Dick up against the wall in his place. “You didn’t say goodbye, either.”

Dick's eyes clench shut. He exhales. “I’m sorry.”

Glaring, Damian scoffs. “You think I’m here for an apology?”

“What _are_ you here for?”

“I want to know.”

“Know?”

Damian’s hand goes to his throat. His fingers coil around it. Not choking, but detaining. It’s a warning. A threat. “Tell me… did you ever think of me after you left? Did you ever wonder what I was doing? Did you ever think to come when you found out I returned to my grandfather?”

“I…”

Damian squeezes his throat harder, digging his fingers into his skin. “Did you ever look at your daughter and wonder about _me_?” Dick doesn’t speak. His expression tells of regret and dismay. Damian leers. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown shy while I was away?”

His grasp on his feelings faintly falters, and his hand deviates into the beginning stages of asphyxiation. It’s harder to fight it than it is to continue.

“What is this about?” Dick croaks.

An acidic smirks manifests on his face. “You never came to visit.” Sardonically, he adds, “It hurt my _feelings_ , Richard.”

Discerning the result if he continues, Damian removes his hand and steps back. Reining himself in, he curls his hands into fists. With a blink, he respires and composes himself.

“You’re as obstreperous as ever,” Dick grumbles, rubbing his fingers over his throat.

“And you’re as docile.” Dick regains his oxygen and equanimity, standing up and stepping closer. Simmering with contempt, Damian stares at him. “I prefer you assertive.”

“You prefer me at all?”

“Hm…” Damian lifts an arm, and it goes right to Dick’s face. Dick seizes his forearm, preparing himself for any direction this can go. Somehow, Damian’s more unpredictable than he remembers. “You have forever been a fool.”

“What?” His grasps around him enervates.

Reducing the space between them, Damian’s body tilts closer and closer, and he’s breathing right over his mouth. Turning to ice, frozen and cold, Dick gapes at him. “You didn’t know?” He bites his lower lip and Dick cannot help himself from examining it as the pinkness recedes beneath his teeth.

Damian’s fingers lightly trail down his face, tracing. His thumb doesn’t touch his lips, but Dick swears he can feel it as the appendage ghosts over his mouth. 

Breathless, Dick meekly responds, his voice quivering. “Know what?”

Damian doesn’t say _I love you_. 

“I have _always_ preferred you,” he says. 

Instantly, Dick comprehends the meaning, wishing he didn't. The words, spoken solemnly over his lips, inject into his bloodstream. 

“You… _What_?” 

Damian slithers away from him, and Dick doesn’t know why his body prickles, wanting the warmth back. Furious for another, different reason he cannot find, Dick clamors. “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

“Why?” he repeats, deriding. “I am already aware of your feelings concerning me.” _Nonexistent_. “There was no reason to complicate things.”

“It’s been years, Damian.” Dick runs a hand back through his hair. “Why tell me at all?”

“For the sake of being honest?” he jeers. Dick makes a face, and Damian has to hide a humored sound in his throat. “I want you to know… I respect you greatly. More than…” _Father_. “You are deserving of my esteem,” he continues. Possession lingers underneath the verbalization. “If you require my aid, I will come.”

“Is this a confession or are you attempting to offer me your services?” he jests, yet his eyes are perpetually widened.

“Neither.” Crossing his arms, Damian’s eyes flicker around the room. “As I said… I’m just visiting.”

The bedsheets are folded. A bitter, covetous feeling gnaws at him, knowing there’s someone who lays in it with Dick; someone he likes enough to allow. His gaze move to the bedside table; the photograph of his family. He no longer has a place in the frame. It faintly stings. More than faintly. More than he cares to fathom. Damian slides a finger over the shelf beside him, lifting it after to look. He’s surprised to find it clean. Before, Dick was not one to be worried about dusting.

“I should go…” Damian mutters. He is not welcome here. He never was. “Will you answer something before?”

 _Why not?_ Dick thinks. _What’s one more question?_ Damian’s crossed more of his boundaries than he thought possible. “Go ahead,” he says.

“Are you happy?” he asks. “Are you happy with what you are achieving here? Do you feel… fulfilled?”

Dick sighs, considering the words. It’s hardly a falsification when he speaks. “Yes. Yes, Damian. I do. I am.”

“Do you think you could have been happy with me?” he asks. There’s a double meaning. A meaning deeper than words can limn.  _Could you have been happy with me as your family? With me as… something more?_ Damian winces. “… No. I have misspoken.”

Dick doesn’t back down from the challenge. He doesn’t even flinch. “Do you think you could have been?” he asks, mirroring him. 

“I don’t think I could be happy with anyone,” he lies. The voice in his head is desperately repeating something else. _Yes. Yes. Yes._ “I am rather insufferable.”

Dick grins. “Am I allowed to agree or will you behead me?”

Damian is unable to stop the corresponding upturning of his own mouth. “I am… pleased with your answer.” Slowing his breathing, he turns away from him. Dick stares at his profile. “I… hope you continue to make a difference in what you do. As mayor,” he teases. The playful voice sends a jolt through Dick’s core. “As for me, the world is my responsibility.”

“You really think that?” he asks.

In a flash, Damian’s touching him again, his fingers sliding through the slight graying at the front of his hair. Dick permits him to, consciously or otherwise, watching as his eyes scintillate over his features. “It was nice to see you.”

Dick swallows, suddenly very restricted. “I… agree,” he forces out.

“I will not interfere with your life any longer.” He removes his hand. “Excuse my transient… weakness in coming here." He turns to him, vexingly. "I will not bother you again.”

“You’re not weak. You were never weak.” Damian could be described in numerous terms Dick can think of, but weak is not a synonym that fits. Nowhere near it.

A small, barely there smile forms on Damian's lips. All he can think is Dick is so stupidly wrong. For one thing he was. One person. 

“Hm…” Taking a final look at Dick, he swivels to depart. “I have something else I wish to tell you.”

Fondly, he asks, “what?”

Exiting through the window, he mutters a final statement that leaves Dick with an obscure tingling throughout his body. It’s a sensation he cannot describe. 

“I quite like the gray.”


End file.
